Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Half letter sized pieces of paper flutter slightly in the breeze of the HVAC system of the ED, taped haphazardly to every locker. Frank can see the printed candy cane-like design from where he just entered the hallway. He stops dead, and it takes all of his will power not to groan.

“Jesus, Addy, you make a better wall than a door,” gripes an all too familiar voice behind him. 

It’s been four months since his initial apology tour on the Fourth, and while his time back at the Pitt has improved, the denizens of the ED still sometimes act like he’s a leper. Despite this, he can admit that at least he and Santos had worked out some kind of reluctant truce, horrible nicknames aside. 

Frank approaches his locker like it’s a pit viper, allowing for said frenemy to see what caused his distress. 

“Oh, goody,” Trinity grins, stepping up to her locker as Whittaker files in behind her. “Secret Santa time!” 

It surprises Frank just how much she doesn’t sound at all disappointed. In fact, she sounds… excited? Dare he say… gleeful? An emotion and tone he’s never heard on her before. 

He’s kind of freaked out. 

Locker still on the lower row (because it’s such a great choice for a man with a back injury), Langdon squats to reach for the number lock, but not before ripping the paper from its Scotch tape fastening. 

Frank sighs, holding it up against his better judgement to get a good look at the bane of his existence: the annual Pitt ED Secret Santa. 

He missed this last year, and for a moment Frank is never so thankful he had been in rehab. The tradition has been Dana’s pride and joy for over 25 years. Something meant to be unifying, a way to get to know a colleague in a way that perhaps you hadn’t known them before. 

“Oh yay, Secret Santa!” 

Langdon turns his head towards the newcomer, dialing in instantly to the juxtaposition of Mel’s slightly lower tone, contrasted with the slightly higher pitch of her excitement. It’s a familiar sound that causes a warm feeling to settle in Frank’s gut, a feeling he doesn’t ever take time to parse. 

“Not you too, Mel,” Frank complains with a pout he knows is childish. So sue him. Wouldn’t get much blood from a stone anyway. 

“Are you kidding, Frank, it’s the best time of the year!” Mel closes in on her locker and carefully, almost reverently, peels the paper and tape from her locker.

“It’s, like, the only time Dana doesn’t go full dragon mode at our bullshit,” Trinity points out, shoving her personal effects into her locker. “The best three weeks ever.” 

It’s true. Dana enjoyed her Secret Santa venture so much, it took a lot to get her in a hostile mood during the weeks it ran. 

As if mentioning her name was a summon spell, Dana peeks around the corner into the locker hallway.

“Get a move on it we’ve already got incoming!” She disappears for a brief second, before popping back in. “And fill those out, STAT, or I’ll make sure you’re stuck in triage for the whole month of December.” 

~*~

About halfway through his shift, Frank finally has a moment to take a breather. He sits heavily in a chair in the breakroom, before reaching into a pocket of his scrubs and pulling out the well-folded piece of paper. 

Frank lived through rehab. Survived a surprisingly amicable separation and divorce. Completed med school. Faced those he had wronged and apologized. Attended N.A. meetings every week. Checked dutifully under beds and in closets for the Boogeyman…

Never had he avoided something so hard in his life. 

“Christ…” He cursed under his breath, thankful no one else is in the breakroom with him to witness his pain. 

Plucking a pen from another pocket, Frank smoothed out the wrinkled paper, then clicked the writing implement agitatedly as he read over the form. 

It was standard fare. Pretty sure the same questions every year. For whatever reason, however, unlike in years past, the answers don’t come to him as easily. 

Time to get it over with. 

The first blank is easy. He’s pretty sure he knows his name by now. Next is a “This or That” section, which doesn’t take much thought. 

Answering the rest of the form is like pulling teeth. What does he do in his spare time? What are his favorite things? What are his other likes and dislikes? Allergies? 

By the time he finishes scribbling his responses, Dana appears at the doorway, informing him of a STEMI that’s five minutes out. 

“On it,” Frank says, shooting to his feet. He replaces the pen in his pocket, and pauses by Dana on his way out the door. “My entry for the Naughty List, Mrs. Kringle.”  

~*~

The rest of his shift that day passes smoothly. 

He works with Mel on two cases, a favorite occurrence of every shift. Since his return on that fateful Fourth of July, Frank and Mel struck up a friendship of sorts. He could admit, as he had to his therapist fairly early on, that at the slightest show of her kindness and belief in his capabilities as a doctor, he had imprinted on her like a God damn baby bird. 

Does he trail after her from room to room like a lost dog? Sometimes. 

Does he know her preferred vending machine treats? Maybe.

Do the words of her delightful sister ring in his head constantly? Yes. He’ll never fucking tell. 

Mel says lots of nice things about you.

God damn, might as well hand Mel any of his dignity. He doesn’t need it anyway. He’ll survive on the sheer fact that she believes him to be a good doctor. Even though most days he feels like someone (Robby) will appear in a cloud of smoke at any time, to rip his medical license from his hands, declaring him unfit. 

Story of his life. 

Unfit will no doubt be the title of the biography of his life no one will ever deem important enough to write. 

“Frank.”

His name, in her voice, launches him from his thought spiral and back into the present. He didn’t realize he still is awkwardly squatting in front of his locker, there to get his shit so he can leave. 

Never does a visit home back to Boston ever end without Frank complaining to his mother about the name she had lovingly gifted him. 

Francis Michael (go figure) Langdon. 

FML.

Sums up the last few years of his life. 

“He’s the patron saint of animals, Frank!” She would reply. Every. Time. 

“Ma, he had the stigmata!” 

“Like you don’t act like a martyr constantly, Francis!”

“He probably died from complications of his trachoma operation, not martyrdom!” 

“Frank.”

The tone is more forceful this time, like Mel had been calling his name several times. 

“Sorry, Mel,” Frank blinks, grabbing the shit out of his locker and standing with a wizened sort of moan. Certainly isn’t getting any younger. “My head’s all over the place today.” 

She doesn’t respond, simply looks at him with those dark eyes that seemed both youthful and ancient. Like her life experiences have advanced her mental age well beyond her physical age. There’s worry in them. For him. And Frank can’t stand that. No one, least of all Mel, should ever worry about him. 

“Are you okay?” She asks, almost as if on cue.

“I’m good, Mel,” he replies with the faintest of smiles. He hopes it looks reassuring and not like a grimace. 

“I asked you about your weekend plans, but you were a million miles away.” 

“Right,” Frank says, as if he knew all along. “Abby’s got the kids so… probably the latest and greatest New York Times crossword and mindless TV. Oh! And the Bruins game on Sunday.”

Mel nods, the action slow, as if the very movement itself was the definition of worry. Or skepticism. Like he actually plans to do something far more self destructive. 

“How about you?” He asks before she can ask any follow up questions. “You and Becca doing anything fun and exciting?”

She gives him a side eye that could rival Penny’s any day. Thankfully, she humors his answering volley. “Yeah, we’ll probably run some errands. Meal prep a little for the week ahead. Nothing fancy.” 

“Sounds like a good time to me,” he smiles, completely genuine. That reminds him that he needs to make a stop at the grocery store. The meager two slices of Kraft American cheese and lone jar of pickles in his fridge would not a meal make. 

“I know it’s November in Pittsburgh, but please take some time to get some Vitamin D this weekend. Even if it’s ten minutes at a time.” 

Frank wants to laugh, if only not to cry. Of course her final parting shot would be of her concern for his well being.

This dumpster fire of a world is undeserving of Dr. Melissa King. 

“Doctor’s orders,” she tacks on, before shutting her locker and calling out one more goodbye over her shoulder as she leaves the ED for the night.

Perhaps the jury is still out on whether the world deserves Mel King. But the verdict has already been passed on whether he deserved any of her attention. 

And it was a resounding no.

~*~

The rest of the week passes, the weekend comes and goes, yet another week drags, and Franks spends his Thanksgiving working day shift. After a surprising amount of knife wounds (even for Thanksgiving day), Frank leaves the Pitt feeling some type of way that he’ll probably unpack with his therapist next week. It’s not quite emptiness, but perhaps something more akin to loneliness. 

Despite the fact that his ex-wife offered a place to go after his shift, he still feels something rather sad curling around and making a home in his ribcage. Even though he is beyond exhausted and wants nothing more than to go home, shower, and collapse on his bed, Frank drives the familiar route back to his house (or rather Abby’s house) and spends the evening picking at a reheated plate of turkey dinner, helping his kids put the electric candles in the windows, and having a surprisingly decent conversation with Abby after the kids were tucked in bed. 

Frank is not thick headed enough to miss that he is extremely lucky to have had perhaps the most amicable divorce anyone has ever had (other than Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves’). Their marriage was long on the chopping block well before he royally fucked his life over. When Abby slid the papers across the kitchen counter to him all those months ago, he wasn’t surprised. They even admitted to each other that perhaps their whirlwind romance leading to marriage had been a bit premature. But neither regretted the two miracles they made together. They have since learned they made way better friends than spouses. 

After Frank kissed Abby on the cheek and left the small Thanksgiving celebration behind, he wondered what future holidays would look like. Would he return to an empty apartment every time he didn’t have the kids with him? Would he trespass on his ex-wife’s hospitality again and again? 

Before Frank knows it, it’s November 30th, and he’s walking in to shift through the ambulance bay. He damn near forgot that today was the day, until he got to his locker, and found a sealed envelope taped to the outside. 

Fuck. 

As the day he found the original form, he heaves a sigh. Envelope in hand, he slides a finger under the flap  and carefully tears it open. Last thing he needs is to start his shift with a bitchin’ paper cut. 

Inside the envelope is a folded piece of paper. 

His Secret Santa receiver. Is that even the right terminology?

Steeling himself, Frank opens up the paper. 

“Mother. Fucker.”

At the top of the page, in the field labeled “Name” sits a combination of letters he wishes he can exchange for a new set.

Trinity Santos.